"What are you waiting for? We're in a hurry."
Bodger spoke blindly, unable to penetrate the black pall beyond his doorway. Frank hesitated, then decided not to reveal himself as yet. As tonelessly as possible, he spoke to Bodger in the required formula. "Orders."
"You have your orders," Bodger snapped, too keyed up to note any deviation in the accustomed path of the—he assumed—robotic voice. "Take us to Miss Horton's Unit at once."
Frank, believing Stanton was still there, had a chill of apprehension. This man, the Secondary Speakster, might not be on the side of revolt; after all, why should he be? For all he knew, Andra was dead, and Bodger was now on his way back to release the President. The whole business of socking him might have been a blind, to win her confidence, and worm the names of the movement's members from her.
"Do you hear me?" Bodger said, although Frank's worried pause had been barely a moment's duration. "Take us at once. All orders conveyed."
Frank manipulated the arm of the hollow robot up into the doorway, and Bodger, seeing it, took hold. Grace took Bodger's other hand, and then Frank, needing time to think the thing out, turned the bulk of his machine about slowly and began to roll toward the lift. He thought of getting Bodger and the Horton girl out in the toils of Ultrablack and then suddenly deserting them, but hesitated to try it; they might, after all, be what he'd begun to believe they were: sympathetic with the movement. Their reasons for the return to the girl's Unit might be even Anti-Hive in nature. Frank did not know what to do, so he simply kept moving, got aboard the lift, and thumbed the ninety-three button after Bodger and Grace Horton were safely within the gates.
The lift dropped smoothly seven levels, then halted, and the gate swung automatically open. And there, his eyes hidden behind a peculiar faceplate, stood Fredric Stanton, hand in hand with Robert Lennick.
"Bodger!" Stanton exploded, seeing him through the filter of his facepiece. Bodger, hearing the voice in the darkness, drew back into a corner of the lift, staring wide-eyed, futilely, for the other man, trying to hide the slim body of Grace Horton behind him, fearing a repeat of Stanton's attack with the Snapper Beam.